An issue of grave importance is sweeping our fair city today, as a debate rages about the proper pronunciation of the dreaded Van Wyck Expressway. Is it Van WICK (as in "stick") or, as some Dutch linguistic purists insist, Van WIKE (as in "like")? more ›

The Van Wyck Expressway's southbound lanes were closed when a U.S. mail truck rolled over and caught fire around 4:30 a.m. The driver managed to escape the truck, which had been traveling south (right before Jewel Avenue), and reportedly only suffered minor injuries. The southbound lanes reopened before 7 a.m. but traffic is heavy in both directions. And, no, there wasn't any mail in the truck. more ›

The husband of a woman who was killed when an out-of-control van struck a parked car which then hit her told the Daily News, "This is horrible... She was a great mom. I have to raise my kids by myself. I have no choice. She did everything for us." Paula Jimenez, a Virginia resident and mother of two, was at a high school reunion picnic at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park; she was walking near some parked cars when the van "came barreling down an exit ramp off the Van Wyck Expressway... [The van] plowed into a parked car, which then smashed into the helpless Jimenez," severing her spinal cord and "severely injur[ing] her head and kidneys." The van's driver Jian Seng He was charged with second-degree homicide and held on $150,000 bail; his lawyer said his brakes malfunctioned while prosecutors say he was trying to chase another car on the Van Wyck. Grieving Andrew Jimenenz told the News that doctors called him to say his wife was brain-dead, "They were trying to keep her alive for organ donation. She always wanted to give up her organs. ... She always gave up herself." more ›

A two-alarm fire was ignited on the Van Wyck Expressway when a tanker crashed near North Conduit Avenue - and JFK Airport - around noon. The driver could not escape and died in the blaze. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an escaped patient on the Van Wyck Expressway in Queens, a homicide on Bruner and Burke Aves. in the Bronx, and shots fired on Bainbridge St. and Lewis Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Jurors in the Nixzmary Brown murder trial were sent home for the second consecutive day Thursday as the defense, prosecution, and judge met in secret to discuss potentially bombshell evidence that's yet to be revealed.
• The NYPD is searching for three police impersonators who knocked on the door of a Cypress Hills, Brooklyn home last night and then pushed their way in, tying up and robbing the 77-year-old and 39-year-old male and female occupants. The robbers were wearing police windbreakers, sunglasses, and dark hats, with at least two of them brandishing pistols.

A 17-year-old who was given a 2007 Dodge Charger SRT8 as a starting-college gift was driving in Queens when the car hit a guard rail, "became airborne for 100 feet," and finally hit a concrete pillar. Two passengers, 18-year-olds Devindra Harilal and Christopher Karan, were killed. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck at 186th St. and Amsterdam in Manhattan, a child was struck and killed by a car on 130th Ave. and Springfield Blvd. in Queens, and a pedestrian was struck by a Bobcat (motorized work vehicle) on Monroe St. and Catherine Slip in Manhattan.
• Ironic Sans examines the new animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and finds specific references to it taking place in NYC, but a very unspecific skyline of unrecognizable buildings.
• A candid admission at the blog dailyheights.com and advice that is is a terrible idea and dangerous to wander off the subway late at night while completely intoxicated.
• Sprint has hired Samsung to install a fourth-generation level of wireless Internet known as Wi-Max in NYC by the end of 2008.
• Republican Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney is presenting NYC to the rest of the country as a paradigm of the ills of illegal immigration. Bloomberg News columnist Amity Shlaes contends that he is badly mistaken.
• A pair of NYC sanitation workers sprinted across three lanes of traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway after witnessing an accident last summer, and then kicked through a car's sunroof to pull a woman and an infant from the overturned vehicle, which was smoking and leaking gasoline.
• Gov. Spitzer's aide Darren Dopp will take some vacation time before returning to work, but his suspension has been lifted following his participation in a scandal to embarrass Majority Leader Joe Bruno with the help of State Police.
• Police are looking for a pair of men who pose as plumbers in Manhattan while burgling the apartments of elderly women.

- As an alternate route, customers are advised to take the Q43 bus to the Sutphin Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue bus stop and take the j train at the Supthin Boulevard Station. more ›

Maybe we've been watching to many forensic crime procedurals on tv lately, but wouldn't someone who fired a gun in an enclosed space like a car be covered in gunshot residue? Isn't that something that would be picked up by the bomb-sniffing equipment they have at airport security? more ›

Matthew Rose, Wall Street Journal more ›